Raised or access floors are typically employed in an office where frequent rewiring is necessary when the office is rearranged. These raised or access floors are most often employed where both electrical power cables and data cables are employed. The power and signal cables, both electrical and fiber optic, can be placed in the space or plenum beneath the raised or access floor. Raised floors simplify both initial installation of the electrical system and subsequent modification or rearrangement. The raised floor is placed on top of the permanent subfloor and is not a permanent part of the building structure. Therefore when rewiring is necessary, the raised floor can be at least partially removed and the cables beneath the floor can be rerouted.
One common type of raised or access floor is one in which individual submodules are placed on a concrete subfloor. Two examples of a raised or access floor of this type are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,571 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,841. Another raised floor that combines individual support modules with raceways is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,300.
Prior art raised or access floors require special outlets for permitting access for connection to the cables beneath the floor. One approach, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,571 is to cut an opening in one of the existing support modules. This approach however means that the basic support modules must be fabricated so that they can be converted to an outlet module. When the support modules are used with raceways, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,300, different outlets must be provided for insertion at different locations relative to the raceways separating support modules. Prior art modules of either type have typically limited the number of connectors that can be mounted in each module and also require a large number of different types of outlet modules.
Another approach is to employ an access floor box that is larger than a standard support module. An example of such a module is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,982. This module pivots relative to the floor and different connector can be mounted side by side in the pivoting door of the modules. These modules are however relatively large and are not easy to incorporate in raised floors such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,571.